1. Field
The present invention generally relates to doors and, more particularly, to doors having a façade formed from a solid piece of material and methods of manufacturing thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Doors, and particularly large doors such as overhead garage doors, come in numerous styles, shapes, and sizes. In a residential setting, many people prefer garage doors that are embellished or stylized to enhance the outer appearance of their homes. Such garage doors may be manufactured using a stamped metal or vinyl exterior or a more traditional multiple-piece construction (such as rail and stile construction).
However, these manufacturing methods each have their own drawbacks. For example, garage doors having a stamped metal exterior have design limitations due to the nature of the materials and tools required to form the desired patterns on the face of the door. In addition, each design requires varying tools to stamp the designs into the door. As such, this method is very expensive to use for larger numbers of designs.
Multiple-piece construction techniques are usually very time-consuming, due to the number of different parts that must be fabricated, aligned, and assembled to form the door. Moreover, the likelihood of quality control issues arising, such as out of tolerance, overall appearance of the door, or door-to-door variations increases with the number of components to be fabricated and pieced together. Numerous other problems exist in the art with respect to the fabrication and assembly of doors, as discussed herein.
Therefore, a need exists for a door suitable for ease of fabrication and flexibility of design options.